


Does One Good to See A Miracle Every Now and Then

by hato



Series: Untitled Series [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childbirth, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-03
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 18:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hato/pseuds/hato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is getting on John’s nerves. John takes a walk and finds a distraction for his bad mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Does One Good to See A Miracle Every Now and Then

**Author's Note:**

> Happens after S1Ep3 (The Pool Incident) and the story ' Little Bit'. This was written as anti-angst for my poor abused heart, lol.

It’s freezing fucking cold outside.  
  
John shoves his gloveless hands deep into his coat pockets, hunches up, his chin burrowing further into his muffler.  Misses his woolen knit hat. His ears are aching after only a few minutes in the icy wind.  Damn Sherlock’s propensity toward flammability tests!  He’d loved that hat.  
  
Yet, John is happy to brave the cold. The air is biting, wet with impending January sleet. But it smells sharp and clean. Fresh. Natural. Better than the heavy chemical stench and lingering hint of human decomposition of Bart’s.  London smells much, much better than death, thanks.  
  
Sherlock had wrinkled his nose, of course. Not at the normal aroma of the lab, but at John’s sudden insistence on popping out for some fresh air.  Not fooled for a moment. John knows that Sherlock knows that John left to get away from Sherlock.  
  
A few too many Not Good’s, an almost argument over proper sterilization procedures with borrowed equipment, added to the previous three days’ worth of constant aggravation, and John’s temper had needed a brief reprieve.    
  
Now, he’s walking about the surrounding area. Wandering, a bit. Wasting time, if he’s honest with himself.  John wants to walk off the irritation with his friend, keep himself from running back to the lab just to punch that smug bastard’s smirk right off his face.  Grinds his back teeth in frustration at the thought.  Ignores the vibrating in his pocket that signals yet another text from Sherlock. In the ten minutes or so since he left the building, John’s mobile has been bombarded with texts, ranging from impudent requests for assistance to outright insults at his inability to take a joke.  
  
His battery is nearly dead from the onslaught.  
  
John winds his way through a neighboring alley to the next street over. It’s a bit nostalgic. He remembers walking these streets in his student days. Taking short cuts because he’d overslept. Finding hiding spots for a quick snog between classes.  Those were the days, yes.  
  
Some of the tension eases as he walks, his pace slowing down. John finds himself several blocks away from Bart’s.  Still familiar territory.  He pauses on the walk outside an apartment building, listening to the dull roar of construction equipment coming from inside. Renovating. He thinks they should be some very nice flats when finished. Another step, a narrow alley entrance. John frowns. He knows this place, he’s certain.  
`              
John enters the alley, scanning the brick walls, searching for some hint of why he recognizes this particular one. He doesn’t think he’s chased any criminals through here. Not recently, at least. It corners to the right, and then to the left. The noise of machinery is even louder in the confined space.  There are large piles of construction debris scattered randomly, partly blocking the narrow path. John skirts around or climbs over best he can.  
  
And he laughs suddenly, despite his sour mood, chuffing little clouds into the frozen air.  John remembers now. A particularly wild shag with a pediatrics professor ( she hadn’t been his instructor at the time) in his second year of uni. In this alley. Against this very wall. Scraped his forehead against that single red brick amidst the grey stone. Ah, memories.  
  
A hand flailing around a pile of timbers halfway down the alley disrupts John’s pleasant reverie.  
  
Startled, at first, he tenses, soldier’s instincts still strong. “ Hullo?”  John has to shout over the noise, hope he can be heard above it.  There’s no response, just that hand grasping a timber, part of a tan overcoat visible beyond. And something... that sounds like a pained cry?  
  
John furrows his brows. Takes a step forward. And another. And then breaks into a run as a young woman emerges around the pile of planks and metal sheeting.  A beautiful thing, with tan skin and dark hair. Indian heritage, John guesses.  Dressed nicely in a heavy camel overcoat and thick dark red muffler. Matching tights sticking out under the long coat, and a simple pair of black ballet flats on her dainty feet.  
  
Very fetching.  
  
And so very obviously pregnant.  
  
Bollocks.  
  
John reaches out and catches her just as she steps into his side of the alley, nearly tripping over scattered broken bricks.  Still has to speak quite loudly, but not quite shouting. “ You alright?”  Stupid question.  John can almost hear Sherlock’s voice in his head.  Of course, she’s not alright! Just  look at her!  
  
The woman shakes her head, lips pressed tightly together. Two gasping inhales. “ St.Bartholomew’sA&E!”  All strung together in one tight breath and capped off with a pained whine.  
  
John’s turn to shake his head. “ Closed down years ago.”  Realizes she’d been heading toward the hospital.  
  
The young woman releases a blast of swearing that causes John to blush despite the cold. In length, intensity and creativity it far surpasses anything he’s heard in the army, pub, or the men’s loo.  He notices he’s gaping at her when she looks up, all dark eyes and a tight, rueful smile. “ Sorry, been away for awhile. Germany. Husband’s... RAF.”  She begins panting again, the groan starting in her chest.  
  
John blinks and actually chuckles.  Then he’s back to business. “ Well, it’s still a hospital and it’s the closest thing, so.”  He loops an arm around behind her waist, intending to help her out of the alley.   If they can get to the main road, perhaps he can even flag down a cab that can take them to the nearest A&E. Hopefully Sherlock’s luck with getting taxis will have rubbed off on John by now.  
  
They make it two steps. The woman halts, bending nearly double, clutching at her rounded belly. “ Ahh! Can’t... can’t!”  She leans against the wall, tears beginning to fall from the corners of her eyes. “ Now, he’s coming now!”  
  
John nods, once. “ It’s alright. I’m a doctor, so you’re in luck today.” Smiles his most reassuring doctor smile. “ How far along?  “    
  
“ Thirty-four w-weeks.” She groans, forehead pressed against John’s shoulder.  
  
“ Any medical conditions? Complications? Concerns?”  He helps her slide down to the ground, her back against the wall, his hand between the rough bricks and her loosely pinned up hair. She shakes her head in a negative reply for each query.   John undoes the three lowest buttons on her coat to allow for her belly and very shapely legs and he really shouldn’t be thinking that way at a time like this. But, Christ, she’s wearing ruby red thigh highs!  
  
He kneels in front of her, quick to remove his coat and drape it over her knees. Keep a bit of body heat near the poor woman and hide the distracting line of red lace.  “ What’s your name?”  John makes solid eye contact, tone casual.  
  
“ S-sarinda.” She digs her nails into the hem of her coat, but her gaze remains focused on him.  
  
“ Lovely name. “ His hands are like ice. “  I’m John. My parents weren’t very imaginative.”  John rubs his hands together briskly, friction heating his palms up, before reaching under the loose, patterned skirt.  “ Going to take your knickers off, but I promise absolutely no funny business.” John grins, Sarinda gives a shaky-but genuine- laugh.  The knickers are flimsy, thin pink cotton. He pulls them away from her body and tears them at the leg seam with little effort, muttering an apology under his breath.  John leaves them hanging around her thigh as he assesses the situation. “ Yes, indeed, we have a baby on the way!”  The head is already crowning. No way he’s going to get her out of this alley in time.  
  
Sarinda squeezes her eyes shut and screams. More profanities. And what John assumes is her husband’s name.  
  
John continues to spill encouragements into the frosty air as he strips off his favorite jumper. “ Something nice and warm... push whenever you feel the urge, Sarinda... impatient lad, isn’t he?” He spreads the jumper beneath her and pulls his mobile from his back pocket. “ Going to get an ambulance here, alright?”  Scrambling with the phone, John accidentally hits the callback button. Calling Sherlock. John doesn’t have time to hang-up and try again.  
  
“ John, I don’t have time for your little fits of indi-”  
  
John raises his voice, hoping to be heard above all the noise. “ Sherlock, I need you! Send- “  
  
“ Where are you? I can barely hear y-”  
  
“ Sherlock! Send an ambulance to- Sherlock? Sherlock?!”  John pulls the mobile away from his ear and stares at it in blank horror.  
  
Battery dead.  
  
Double bollocks.  
  
Well, he’s on his own now. But that’s fine. It’s fine.  John unceremoniously drops the phone to the pavement and puts his full attention back on his patient. Patient s . “ No worries. “ He flashes another smile, taking the jumper’s sleeve in hand and pressing it against the edge of delicate skin being stretched outward. “ You’re doing wonderfully, Sarinda. Brilliant.”  Feels the pressure under his fingers, even through the thick wool knit. Pushes against it to lessen the chances of tearing. “ Just slow and easy, yeah? “  He flicks his gaze back to her face, checking her level of awareness.  “ Breathe, Sarinda. Don’t forget to breathe.”  
  
She pulls in several deep breaths, eyes locked onto John’s face. He stares right back, giving her something to focus on.  Sarinda pants heavily, head tipping back to rest against the brick. Her eyes stay forward. “ Breathing... Doctor John. “    
  
“ Good, good. “ John watches her, sees the subtle signs of another contraction coming on before Sarinda dips her chin back to her chest and partly muffles an agonized yell into her scarf. “ Push, push, push! Keep going!”  John looks down while her attention is diverted. The dark head is emerging slowly. John can make out the forehead and brows, the bridge of a tiny nose. “ Nearly there, Sarinda! Rest now. You're doing wonderfully, perfect. Breathe, breathe...”   He observes her closely, the color in her cheeks, the slightly glazed look in her eyes that he recognizes very well.  Pain and focus. Of being so far inside oneself that the outside world is nothing more than a watery shadow.  Seen so often in the field, in the med tents, on soldiers and civilians alike.    
  
A moment of quiet, a minute and a half of intense breathing. In. Out. In. Out.  
  
John continues to grin. He can’t help it. He hasn’t delivered a baby in over a decade, not since his residency at Bart’s. He’s in an unprotected alleyway. It’s going to start sleeting at any moment. He knows Sherlock will eventually figure out where he is and what he needs, but not how long it will take.  
  
But he has this completely under control. And the adrenaline rush is magnificent.  
  
Another contraction. John adjusts the position of his jumper sleeve. “ Good, good! You’re brilliant, Sarinda! Keep pushing!”  
  
“ John!”  A crash of falling timbers. “ John!”  
  
John spares a second to glance over his shoulder.  Sherlock is stomping through the congested alley, bellowing in his deep voice. John’s smile widens immeasurably. The relief is a bit surprising. “ Over here! Did you bring paramedics with you?”  He hopes Sherlock, in his usual bossy way, has commandeered a nurse or at least some proper medical equipment for his search and rescue.  John falls back into his litany of ‘ Good’ and ‘Push’.    
  
He sees Sherlock approaching from his peripheral. Sees him stop a meter away. And just stand there. “ You interrupted no less than a dozen experiments in progress for  this ? Typical.”  
  
“ Shut up! What are you doing?”  
  
“ Texting Molly.”  
  
“ To send an ambulance?”  
  
“ To check the results of my rectal abrasion test. I think I’ve-”  
  
“ Sherlock!”  John wants very much to hit Sherlock. Anywhere. With anything. Maybe that plank right there. He can’t look up, not with the baby’s head pushing fully into his palm and Sarinda screaming bloody murder. He runs a finger under the wet chin, all around the head, checking for an umbilical cord loop around his neck. It’s clear. John forces speech through a tightly clenched jaw. “ Either make yourself useful or take your arse back to Bart’s and call an ambulance! “ He watches the rotation of the head, waits for Sherlock to leave.  
  
A large black overcoat flutters down in front of John’s face, neatly covering Sarinda up to her neck.  Sherlock crouches at the woman’s side. Takes off his expensive gloves and gently slips them over her trembling chapped hands.  Folds his own slender hands around her smaller one.   Murmuring the same comforts as John.  Pale eyes flicker up. “ I told Molly where we are. The paramedics should be here soon. “  
  
John locks eyes with him. And the smile comes back, full force.  
  
Sherlock returns it with his own.  
  
And then John remembers that he has a job to do, a tiny life waiting for him to get on.  “ Alright, Sarinda! Give it all you’ve got! Push, push, push, push! Here he comes!”  John eases a shoulder out, then the other. Sarinda practically growls as she bears down a final time and in a wave of fluids and limbs and cording, John catches a warm, slippery little body in the folds of his jumper. “ Here he is! A great big lad, at that!”  He’s quick about getting his jumper wrapped snugly around the newborn, a thick wooly barrier against the cold.  A few brisk rubs and the baby is wailing loudly.  
  
Sherlock lifts their coats without any direction, allowing John to place the wriggling bundle in Sarinda’s waiting arms before he covers them both again.  Actually tucking it carefully ‘round. Pale eyes glued to the crying mother and child.  
  
Sherlock’s expression... The man is certainly not as exuberant as John at witnessing this little miracle of life. He appears more curious than anything. But not in his usual calculating way, that keen observation that means he is brutally picking apart the subject. Solving the puzzle.  No, this is softer, more open. A gentle reverence mixed with a dose of obvious confusion as to why Sarinda and John are so deeply affected.  
  
 _“ Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it”_ ,  Sherlock had said that once, about something he didn’t understand, didn’t deem important enough to learn or retain. John remembers.  
  
John is still grinning like an absolute idiot, riding the high.  
  
Until Sherlock reminds him of some biological realities. “ What about the placenta?”  
  
“ What? Oh, yeah.” John glances around. Their coats are in use. His jumper is currently occupied. He glances over Sherlock’s lanky form. “ Give me your jacket.” He nods his head to indicate his friend’s black suit jacket.  
  
“ John.” The pretty expression is gone from his face. Sherlock is nothing but serious now.  Incredulous, really. “ This.  is.  Italian.” Slowly, as though John is a particularly dim-witted child.  
  
John furrows his brow. “ So?”  
  
Sherlock wrinkles his nose.” What about that charity shop reject you’re wearing?”  
  
Sarinda is thankfully oblivious to their discussion/argument. Too busy cooing and sniffling quietly.  
  
John swears under his breath and reaches under his muffler, begins unbuttoning his plaid shirt. The vest underneath is going to be poor protection in this weather and he is already shivering, the adrenaline rush fading.    
  
Before he can untuck it from his jeans, John hears the blaring sirens of an ambulance not too far away.  Thank Christ for small favors.  
  
In short order, Sarinda and the baby (whom Sarinda kindly refuses to name ‘Sherlock’ despite all of Sherlock’s persuasive arguments, but assures John with a grateful smile that his ‘unimaginative’ name will have a place in the infant’s moniker) are bundled up properly into the back of the ambulance.  The paramedics return their coats and the gloves. And pack John’s jumper into a biohazard bag for him to take home. John is reasonably certain he can get it clean.  
  
He gives a last wave as the back doors shut, promising to check on them both soon.  Watches as the ambulance pulls away from the curb and into traffic as the first drops of rain and ice begin to fall.  
  
Standing there, basking in the afterglow of a good deed well done, John turns his goofy grin on Sherlock just behind him.  
  
The corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirks up. “ Did you enjoy your walk?”  
  
“ Yes. Yes, I did, thank you.”  
  
“ Are you done being full of yourself?”  
  
“ Are you?”  John rocks up on his heels and chuckles as Sherlock rolls his eyes and heads in the direction of Bart’s.  John swings his bagged jumper and follows cheerily in his wake.  
  
 ** end. **

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to everyone who reads, kudos', and comments!


End file.
